Beatties Blat

The following piece was first published in New Zealand Author - June/July 2011

WRITERS  FESTIVALS – a chance for authors to strut their stuff

During May I attended two writers’ festivals –one in Auckland and the second in Sydney.

Gosh what a joy to see people turning out in their thousands to listen to authors talking about their books and then to observe the queues afterwards of folk buying books and getting them signed by the author they have just heard.

Both of these Festivals are annual events, both are impressively well organised and both are made possible by significant sponsorship and an army of volunteers. Both Festivals reported record crowds and the bookshops at both Festivals reported record sales.  All good stuff and music to the ears of both authors and publishers.

Literary festivals, or writers weeks within larger Arts Festivals, (as is the case in Wellington & Adelaide), are a relatively new phenomenon but they have spread like wildfire over the past decade. In New Zealand we have the annual Auckland Writers & Readers Festival while both Christchurch and Wellington have events every two years and then there are various smaller regional events. In Australia all the state capitals run annual events with Adelaide being the oldest and in fact it was the first literary festival in the southern hemisphere. Then to the north in Bali there is the annual Ubud Festival held in October which features authors from New Zealand and Australia as well as from around the world.

Authors should be proactive in trying to get themselves on stage at these events as there is no doubt that it is a most effective way of increasing profile and selling more books. If you have an agent then get them on the job of getting you appearances; if you don’t have an agent then chase your publisher. If you can come up with an angle for a panel discussion so much the better.

Remember the organisers of these festivals have a lot of slots to fill – there were nearly 80 events at the Auckland Festival while in Sydney there were nearly 300. Don’t be bashful, push yourself forward.

By the by my favourite event in Sydney was The Finkler Querstion – an hour with Man Booker Prize 2010 winner Howard Jacobson. He was very funny, most entertaining and skilfully (minimally) chaired by Rock Gekoski who was at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival last year. Jacobson was the rank outsider to win the Man Booker Prize and he was especially interesting when talking about the night of the presentation and how his life has changed since. And a key statistic – The Finkler Question has sold more copies since than the total sales of all his other books combined – 10 novels and four works of non-fiction!